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The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

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Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#161

Post by dboreham »

Joe-Z wrote: post #152
dboreham wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in Livingston for nearly 20 years and I know Alex, and his kids are classmates of mine. This has been big news locally for a while but interesting to see it hit the national wires. However, I grew up in Scotland where we have a somewhat longer history of dealing with access to land and rich people ;) The solution there is that there is a legal right to access wild land. Note this doesn't just apply to "pub…

That solution seems so obvious, I was thinking that the whole time I read the article: Why allow people to so zealously defend their property rights on a huge plot of land that's hundreds of acres big? It's not like you're standing in their living room. OTOH maybe that's just my European perspective where we're used to living 'cramped' (as opposed to the vastness of the Americas).

In some cases you have to "follow the money" to understand it : the land owners are trying to make money by running a business taking people onto the public land to hunt etc. Rent Seeking.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#162

Post by dboreham »

vogt wrote: post #144
dboreham wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in Livingston for nearly 20 years and I know Alex, and his kids are classmates of mine. This has been big news locally for a while but interesting to see it hit the national wires. However, I grew up in Scotland where we have a somewhat longer history of dealing with access to land and rich people ;) The solution there is that there is a legal right to access wild land. Note this doesn't just apply to "pub…

OT, but I have to imagine (as someone who has visited Livingston) that you might well be the only person to ever grow up in Scotland and live in Livingston for 20 years. Kinda interesting.

Turns out not. There are at least two true Scottish people in the Livingston area. I haven't met either one yet but I have chatted with the guy at the special order doors/windows desk in Lowes in Bozeman. He's from East Kilbride.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#163

Post by conservajerk »

I submit that there was a time and place for these landowners to consider the public access issue on their land - when they bought the land! I would assume they would have done their research and such factors would have played into the price they paid. To change this now is disingenuous.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#164

Post by 24gttghh »

davidw wrote: post #75
24gttghh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the Sierra Club only opposed mtn biking in designated Wilderness Areas, which only make up 36M out of 192M NFS acerage.[0] (That's 145,000 km^2 out of 780,000 km^2) Those areas really should just be left alone as much as possible. The White Mountain National Forest doesn't even like expanding or maintaining the leantos in much of their Wilderness Areas, so it's not like…

They've been pretty consistently anti MTB over the years. There are absolutely wilderness areas where there should not be bikes, but it should be decided locally, just as certain trails outside of wilderness areas are, justly, hiker only. For instance, this is a Wilderness area east of Bend, Oregon. It is not, however a "wilderness" - indeed many of the trails are former jeep roads: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.00…

The Oregon Badlands Wilderness you have pointed out seems very much wild to me. As a counterpoint, much of the WMNF in NH/ME was formerly logged, and there are remnant logging tracks (as opposed to jeep roads) scattered throughout, including in the wilderness areas. Eventually those jeep tracks will be just as unrecognizable as our logging tracks.

There are so many other places to ride and build trail, maybe we should just leave the wilderness areas alone.

The whole point of the wilderness areas is to halt further development in them. Those jeep roads were probably there before the area was "designated wilderness", as was the custom of horseback riding and hunting. Mountain biking wasn't a thing yet.

Oregon Badlands brochure for those interested:

https://www.blm.gov/or/districts/prineville/recreation/files...

Honestly most of that place seems really sandy, which isn't conducive to mountain biking in my mind.

One more thing. Many of these policies of no MTB were put in place before the advent of more sustainable trailbuilding practices were developed. Get out there and advocate for hardened, twisty, flowy, long-lasting singletrack!

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#165

Post by jdhn »

barsonme wrote: post #139
nickik wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 'the right' (whatever that means) has abandoned the environment. At least libertarians have not. Check out www.perc.org, these are free market people who are extremely passionate about the environment and they are quite popular and have made great inroads to provide an alternative way of thinking about the environment compared to the leftist big government bureaucracy style of protecting it. They suppor…

We at ACC like PERC :-) And we do partner with other eco-right groups: https://www.acc.eco/founding-coalition/ Obviously I'm generalizing a bit, but I don't think it's unfair to say the right has lagged far behind on environmental issues since at least the '80s.

I'm kind of late to the game, but what do you think about RepublicEn[0]?

[0] www.republicen.org

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#166

Post by aj_g »

typeformer wrote: post #81
sliverstorm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tech per se isn't the main force killing MT, or the west, it's mostly our values that are. Which values? Can you expand a little? I have guesses, but would like to hear from you.

I'm actually working on a solar punk book about this topic too, hehe. It can be hard to articulate but the word that does it best is "wetiko". No book has impacted me more in my worldview in the last three years than, "Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism" by Jack D. Forbes, a native professor who started the first Native American Studies Program. If you read on…

I'll be reading this book, thanks for the recommendation.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#167

Post by njarboe »

mikestew wrote: post #148
njarboe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me bikes over horses every day. Not sure exactly why hiking in a bit of horseshit, here and there, bothers me so much. I think it mostly is that I imagine that when you are on a horse you are much higher off the trail and don't have to deal with the stink your horse created.

The shit is the least of it, as horses will pound a trail to dust. How anyone argues with a straight face that MTBs are more impactful than horses is beyond my comprehension.

Yes. If you are hiking behind someone, lots of dust. Horse shit in the dust. Not very pleasant. In conditions like that I hope for a little rain.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#168

Post by davidw »

24gttghh wrote: post #164
davidw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been pretty consistently anti MTB over the years. There are absolutely wilderness areas where there should not be bikes, but it should be decided locally, just as certain trails outside of wilderness areas are, justly, hiker only. For instance, this is a Wilderness area east of Bend, Oregon. It is not, however a "wilderness" - indeed many of the trails are former jeep roads: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.00…

The Oregon Badlands Wilderness you have pointed out seems very much wild to me. As a counterpoint, much of the WMNF in NH/ME was formerly logged, and there are remnant logging tracks (as opposed to jeep roads) scattered throughout, including in the wilderness areas. Eventually those jeep tracks will be just as unrecognizable as our logging tracks. There are so many other places to ride and build trail, maybe we shoul…

That Badlands place would certainly not the best riding around (it'd maybe be good in the winter), but it's really not 'wild' feeling at all and is a good example of Wilderness != wilderness.

> maybe we should just leave the wilderness areas alone.

Except that brings into conflict mountain bikers with the idea of expanding wilderness areas. Wouldn't we rather have more areas protected like that? As it stands, mountain bikers who are environmentalists face an agonizing choice between protecting the land in that way, and their access to trails.

That's not hypothetical, either:

https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-news/oregon-crater-lak...

See also the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness in Idaho that closed a bunch of trails that mountain bikers were already riding.

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#169

Post by barsonme »

jdhn wrote: post #165
barsonme wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We at ACC like PERC :-) And we do partner with other eco-right groups: https://www.acc.eco/founding-coalition/ Obviously I'm generalizing a bit, but I don't think it's unfair to say the right has lagged far behind on environmental issues since at least the '80s.

I'm kind of late to the game, but what do you think about RepublicEn[0]? [0] www.republicen.org

They're great! And Bob was one of our first supporters.

[0] https://twitter.com/republicEn/status/918153164146266112

[1] https://www.acc.eco/endorsements/

Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains

#170

Post by jpindar »

corpMaverick wrote: post #31
drewnick wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Hampshire also has a pretty unique culture regarding hunting on others' and public land: "Based on long-standing tradition, nearly all lands in the state of New Hampshire are open to hunting. The "rule of thumb" in New Hampshire is: all state, federal, municipal, county and private land is open to hunting unless it is posted against hunting." http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/hunting/where-hunt.html

Not sure if this is how it works in NH. But, IMHO private land owners should pay more taxes for their land if they post against roaming. Or the reverse, pay less land taxes if they allow roaming.

That is already the case in NH.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_use

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